The Gender Politics in the Management of Property and the Authorial Control over Writing in Charles Brockden Brown's Ormond; or, The Secret Witness

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This paper investigates the relationship of female gender with property rights and agency of writing in late eighteenth-century America and how this issue is reflected in the "sympathetic" personalities of two female characters-Constantia Dudley and Sophia Westyn-in Charles Brockden Brown's Ormond; or, The Secret Witness. This novel foregrounds the significance of sisterly sympathy through descriptions of compassionate behaviors of the female protagonist, Constantia, and her final protection by the female narrator, Sophia. The dynamism of constructing their images, however, contains within itself components threatening to their images. The components stem both from the eponymous character, Ormond, whose excessive reliance on rationality is described as moral barrenness and from the work itself, Ormond, through which Sophia's personality is also constructed in an epistolary manner. Ormond represents the socioeconomic framework of post-revolutionary America, and Constantia's sympathetic image is undermined when she is positioned within a house he gave her-the sphere that embodies the sway of his trespassing rational discourses. Ormond's reins of opinion over Constantia try to convert her into his metaphorical property. Sophia's agency of writing, which constructs her "good" feminine personality, inadvertently shows its similar discourse network to Ormond. Her writing, ironically titled Ormond, reveals her "masculine" treatment of Constantia and the dubious strategy of the construction of her own literary personality. This study aims to reveal the gender politics inherent to the management of property and the authorial power over writing in late eighteenth-century America through the two female characters.

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  • 英米文化

    英米文化 43 (0), 65-85, 2013

    英米文化学会

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